Time: Silent Killer

Its passage is deadly

A landmark study to be published today in the British medical journal Lance says that time is an unstoppable and certain killer.

The findings, which show that over time the condition of human beings steadily deteriorates until death becomes inevitable, is the result of one of the longest longitudinal studies ever undertaken.

“In every respect time seems to contribute to death,” said study author Dr. Peter Bent, a leader in the field of genetic horology. “We noticed this first in animal studies with mice. There was nothing we could do — after a while, just rooting around in their cages, they would die.”

The animals in the earliest studies were given exhaustive post mortem examinations. “At first we attributed the deaths to numerous factors, disease, the deterioration of cells, and so on. But then we noticed a common factor in all mortality – time.”

Examination of statistics associated with human deaths demonstrated the same thing. “We found that, sure enough, there it was again, time. Its passage is deadly.”

Mindy Harks, director of research at Exmouth General Hospital where the study was conducted, congratulated Bent’s team. “To my knowledge there’s never been anywhere near this degree of perfect correlation of data in a study.” She said this alone justified the hundreds of millions of pounds it will take to complete the research, but cautioned that effective treatments to turn back time were still years away.